My Mom has been ill for over six months. Last summer, after colonoscopy and
endoscopy, they diagnosed her with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She has been
unable to eat much for months. In November her doctor diagnosed her with
sciatica, and then at Christmas she came down with shingles. The medicine
healed the lesions but the infection scarred the nerves, and she still gets bad
pain.

More recently, her gastro-enterologist heard indications of insufficient blood
flow in her abdomen, and a CT angiogram found that the superior mesenteric
artery, which supplies blood to the stomach and intestines, was badly clogged.
They figured that this was the cause of her intestinal and stomach pain rather
than IBS.

They performed an angioplasty a couple of weeks ago, and expected almost
immediate relief from her pain. There has been no relief. It's looking like
she has IBS, on *top* of the clogged artery that they cleared.

The horrible pain she often gets after eating has her afraid to eat a lot of the
time, and she has lost about forty pounds. The last time she was weighed,
about a week and a half ago, she was down to 102 pounds. Her doctor gave has
given her some really good instructions for eating, both to manage her symptoms,
and to put some weight back on, but she is not really following it. It is
really frustrating and worrying for me. In addition to this, we are getting
absolutely no moral support from my sister back east, no phone calls, emails,
nothing. I would really appreciate any prayers or good thoughts, both for Mom
and for me.


Laurie of the Isles
Laudon1228@...